Games That Weren't^®

GTW Highlight No.24: Kicking off July, we were stunned to recovered one of our holy grails missing for 33 years! We were proud to present Gremlin’s Nigel Mansell World Championship on the Commodore 64. A very advanced preview too that you can now play!

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/nigel-mansell-world-championship/ Continue reading →

GTW Highlight No.23: In June we preserved Carts of Fury, a missing Flash-based advergame recovered with the help of an anonymous contributor. A shopping-cart racer set in supermarket aisles — now finally archived after being inaccessible for years.

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2025/06/canadian-tire-carts-of-fury-flash-game-preserved/ Continue reading →

GTW Highlight No.22: In June, we recovered an unknown surprise 3rd Dr. Franken prototype for the Game Boy, taking Franky into space! Explore an unseen early prototype with puzzles and areas within a rocket ship. More coming soon too we hope:

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2025/06/dr-franken-3/ Continue reading →

GTW Highlight No.21: In June, we recovered a very different version of World Class Rugby for the #SNES, dated July 1992 – some time before the final release. The engine was very different from the final version, with different sprites + faster pace.

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2025/06/world-class-rugby-snes-prototype/ Continue reading →

GTW Highlight No.20: In June, we recovered The Grid – a canned 1995 space shooter by D3. We added an early #PC demo with Descent-like movement + a few ships to shoot. Plus Concept art too. Lots still unknown and to be discovered.

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2025/06/the-grid/ Continue reading →

GTW Highlight No.19: In June, we recovered an earlier 1992 NES build of Nigel Mansell’s World Championship Racing by Gremlin. Used as a reference for a conversion, this build featured title screen, credit and speed differences:

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2025/06/nigel-mansells-world-championship-racing/ Continue reading →

GTW Highlight No.18: In early June, we released early builds of a cancelled and previously unknown Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes conversion for #GameBoyAdvance. Developed by DC Studios in 2000, scrapped before release. Full story:

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2025/06/army-men-sarges-heroes/ Continue reading →

GTW Highlight No.17: In May, we recovered a very early 1992 #SNES prototype platformer called Chaos Drop. Developed by Enigma Variations, the game was dropped and eventually morphed into Magician’s Apprentice for PC/Konix. Check out early builds here:

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2025/05/chaos-drop/ Continue reading →

GTW Highlight No.16: In May, we uncovered 7 NES prototype builds of The Addams Family: Pugsley’s Scavenger Hunt (1993 Ocean)- including an early version with cut content and different room layouts. A fascinating glimpse at the game in development.

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2025/05/the-addams-family-pugsleys-scavenger-hunt-nes-prototypes/ Continue reading →

GTW Highlight No.15: In May, we were honoured to give a talk at Zzap! Live about Games That Weren’t and 25 years of uncovering unreleased, cancelled, and forgotten games with a C64 focus. Here is a link to the full talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlOGKwrN7uk Continue reading →